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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29393499">The Perable of Susan Pevensie</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bdot424/pseuds/Bdot424'>Bdot424</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 08:47:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,201</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29393499</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bdot424/pseuds/Bdot424</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>She who has lost everything. Her family, her home, her life, her loved ones. She had grown accustomed to chasing the life she had lost inside the wardrobe. She chased it so far she didn’t realize she had walked the path of solitude. Now the parable was hers to right</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Susan - Relationship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The ink had spilled the page for days. Susan had taken to a home in the states, studying history and architecture. It was around the corner, the 4tj since the funeral. She would be lying to herself if she said she didn’t miss them. How could she not miss the way Lucy would marvel over the smallest things. Or the way Edmund would offer advice when anyone was in need. Or how she and Peter could talk for hours about anything.
</p><p>
Susan missed them as she missed her parents as well. She had grown further from her mother in the years since leaving London, often times resorting to bickering and name calling. Words she so desperately wished to take back but knew she could not. Her father was a bit different, he grew to see his sister in her which was something Susan did not like. 
</p><p>
“ Another call” Susan thought as she picked up the phone. Their were moments where she believed they would call and announce it had been all a trick. It had been nothing but a game, like the ones they played back with the old man. She missed him from time to time, the memories of his home never fading.
</p><p>
“ Susan” a voice called from outside the window, the rain tapping the windows. Susan smiled as she glanced to the picture on her side. It was her alongside her siblings near the wardrobe. The games they used to play as kids would make anyone think they sounded crazy. Susan had believed they had sounded crazy when they swore it was real. She wished they had spoken more before they passed especially Lucy. In her last days Susan found it hard to talk to her. The conversations would turn to arguments about and and every thing. The smallest thing would set them ablaze and even if Edmund and Peter could pull them apart they would be at each other’s neck again shortly.
</p><p>
“Lucy” she said, rubbing the picture as a knock came to her door. She headed for her kitchen, the apartment she owned in the states a result of money she inherited after the funeral. She opened the door, letting the lion wind chime ruffle against it
</p><p>
“ Delilah” she said, allowing her friend to enter the room. Delilah was a city girl, tall and good looking but not coming from an excessive amount of money. Among the two and their other members of their friend groups Susan was the most rebellious. She was also the one who gained the most affection from men, something that Delilah constantly reminded her of.
</p><p>
“ Susan we are not getting any younger I tell you” she said, pushing her hair away while Susan checked her mirror. “ Matthew will not wait forever”
</p><p>
“ He will wait for me” Susan implored, laughing as she thought of the boy. He came from money, bribing her with art that she held around her home. She didn’t mind the boy all that much, he was not what she really desired but he would do.
</p><p>
“ Susan have you heard from Margret recently?”
</p><p>
“ What is she going on about now?”
</p><p>
“ She believes she has found the lord”
</p><p>
Susan had not been to church since she was in secondary school. To think it had been that long was frightening, she always meant to return but she didn’t have time.
“Well when she finds him I hope she does not lose time for us” Susan said as her friend left her home. She promised she would hit the town with her if she had the time, between school and her relatives constantly calling she was very backlogged.
</p><p>
“ Susan you have forsaken me”
Susan hated that voice with all her heart. It creeped up whenever she thought of her siblings, her childhood or her parents. It called her name, never giving direction and instead offering criticism.
</p><p>
Susan looked towards the mirror and moved back. She would see herself as a child from time to time, her fascination with arrows mostly gone. According to Edmund she had traded them in for “ lipsticks and nylon”. The boy had been stubborn since birth and yet she missed him and Peter so. 
</p><p>
Susan never wore her hair up like this. She hated to look like her mother, especially when she went out. It bothered her to resemble people she lost, it would do no good for them in her mind. She met Delilah, Margret and the rest of her friends at a restaurant, a man serving them drinks. Susan pleaded with the man to serve them a 2nd serving for free which he happily ablidged to.
</p><p>
“ Susan have you found someone to settle with. You recall Alice from our math course”
“Yes I do”
“ Word has got out she is to have a child”
</p><p>
Susan would be lying if she said she wasn’t somewhat jealous. As a child she was told she was trying to be like her mother or trying to be a parent to her friends but now that she was older she hadn’t gotten her chance. Every time she met a boy she compared him to the previous one and they never measured up. They never had and they never will, not to what she saw as the perfect man. Courageous, loyal, faithful, smart, successful. 
</p>
<p>
“Hello to you all” Nathan said as he entered their area. He was a boy from the west coast, living in New York to study in the city. He was nothing like Matthew, that didn’t interest Susan one bit. 
“ Susan I must be going” Delilah said as her friends followed. Susan took note of what was going on and left as well, not taking the boys feelings into consideration. 
</p>
<p>
She returned home, turning on the tub as she prepared herself dinner. After the funeral she had become quite the cook, out of need more so then want. She turned back to her study, the books piling up as she looked towards her term papers. 
</p>
<p>
“ Peter would have been proud” she said as she looked down to a picture of her siblings. She had them around the apartment, a sort of sign that they were always there with her. She heard the wind chime but no one came to her door. She turned her record player up and played the music, looking out her door to find a note
</p>
<p>
“ Hello Ms Pevensie” the note read, Susan already knowing it belonged to Matthew. “ I have heard from some mutual friends that you fancy me and I have long fancied you myself. I am currently at the inn on the north end of town. I wish to take you to dinner tonight, my driver is outside if you wish to see him. Susan was flattered, grabbing her coat and clothes before looking to the clock. She was turning 25 tomorrow, without her family or friends for that matter. A quarter century and here she was, alone and at the beck and call of a man. 
</p>
<p>
“ To think they once called you gentle” the voice said, echoing through her head. Susan hated this voice, it reminded her of what she lost when she left that place. That imaginary place that had never existed. Where she was a queen and she ruled beside her family. A place she had not seen in years, she acted as if it didn’t exist but as she closed the door she heard another voice say
</p>
<p>
“ You have forsaken me for the chase of life”
</p>
<p>
“You are right” Susan whispered as she dusted her pants off. “ If you truly exist you would know why this is. I had a life there, a simple and easy one, I had found love and you stole it from me. You christened me gentle and yet you showered me with pain. Pain you didn’t give to Peter or Edmund or Lucy. And you wish to speak of me in this way?
</p>
<p>
“ The voice disappeared as Susan left her complex. She shivered a bit, the thought of her having that conversation scaring her. She looked through the mirror of the car, a broken castle in her face as she entered and the driver drove off, taking her to a man that could not be stolen from her.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Mirror and The Lady</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Susan has aged out of the grief she felt in her 20s but the issue still stands. She still feels a hole, she still sees the gape in her life and wishes it to be whole once more. What will restore the hole if anything can?</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The man didn’t last long. None of them did, none of them could fill that void for Susan. So she would come and go, hold their hearts and let them drown in the river if need be. She carried herself with dignity, informing the men she was not easy. She would be a catch, a stag like the ones that she used to hunt.
</p><p>
“ Hello love” Nathan said as he entered the room. She had been with him for a few years now, a mix between biding her time and familiarity. She appreciated the boy, if she could call a 28 year old a boy. Edmund would have berated her for doing so. Susan smiled, looking outside the window to see the night sky. New York was still home for her, her schooling having finished years prior and her job in the city paying handsomely. She went to Nathan, pressing her lips against his as she let out a smile. He said he would be leaving soon, heading out of town for a few days to visit family
</p><p>
“ You can tag along, they’ll be happy to meet you”
She declined, remembering the first time a man brought her amongst family. The land was filled with a breeze that roamed the roads. The man was maybe her age at the time, his crown and saber at his side as they rode in.
</p><p>
“ I cannot wait to show you around our court” he said, laughing as Susan joked with him. 
“Jobe” she said, a tear falling from her face as Nathan left. She never spoke of the man with anyone, she barely believed he was real to begin with. But in her heart she knew it was true, that she had lost his when she walked through again. That when she returned she knew he wouldn’t be there, he could not have lived forever, in and out of time like she.
</p><p>
“ Susan” a voice said as the girl drifted towards the kitchen. She knew this voice, from her childhood and adulthood. A voice that cared for her and spurned her in the same breath. 
</p><p>
“ You still belong to the world”
“As everyone else did” Susan said, her hands clenching. She had rebuked the voice countless times, she knew it did nothing but lie, promise her things and then cast them to the wind.
</p><p>
“ Your Home” the voice said, a slight dose of anger in its tone. “ The resemblance is striking, down to the chest”.
Susan had meant to get rid of the chest, it housed a plethora of things. Old rings and heirlooms from London, books she was given by various professors, a necklace she was gifted by her mother as a child, and a bow. She held it in her hand, it was small. The size of someone in their teens, surely not a women who had just become 33.
“ You label your past as childish” the voice said as Susan called out. She berated it, cursing it for taking from her and then leaving her alone. Leaving her with no way to say goodbye and asking her to believe. The voice had done this before, she would not fall for it again.
</p><p>
“ There is not much more I can do” the voice said as Susan saw a beach in the mirror. She looked closer, recognizing the castle in front of her as the words left her mouth
</p><p>
“ Cair Paravel”
</p><p>
A name from her childhood, that is what it had to be. She knew it was not real but yet she recognized it immediately. The place looked vacant, as if it needed someone to repair it. Susan had long decided she would cast those childlike fantasies away. When her reality was stolen from her. 
</p><p>
Susan awoke the next day and wrote a letter. She let the ink hang a bit as she packed her belongings. 
</p><p>
“ Jobe”
She had let that name hang in the balance for far too long. Ever since she walked through the wardrobe again, she had sought after him. In a place he would never be, she sought after the man. His mahogany skin, smart mind and endless love. She knew she would never find someone to replace him. She wouldn’t allow it, and she had no right to waste the time of another man.
</p><p>
“ Susan is this you” Delilah said, her brunette hair hanging off her head. Nathan’s home phone was quite the pleasure to use, and Susan knew Delilah would come if she called. 
</p><p>
“ I need you to come get me”
“ Susan I thought you said you would stay with him”
“ I cannot” She said, her words coming between pants and breaths now. “ I... I can’t lead him on like this”
</p><p>
“ Susan I don’t think you’ve lead him on, he genuinely cares for you”
“ When will you come for me?”
“ Susan I am not in town now” Delilah said, Susan’s head dropping down as she spoke. “ Terry asked for my hand so I have moved north a bit. Surely you will be at my side when the day comes”.
</p><p>
Delilah never got the answer. Susan paced through the home, picking up her belongings until she found a note. It was from her aunt Alberta, the mother of eustass.
</p><p>
“ My dearest Susan” the note said, Susan holding the bottom tightly. “ I have missed you so, I know we were not along the same page your parents and I but ever since my boy was gone we’ve been looking for any way to reconnect. If you wish to take the opportunity write me back. If not I will understand and accept your wishes”.
</p><p>
“ Susan”
</p>
<p>
“ Impossible” Susan said as she held the bow in her hand. She turned to the voice, glancing in the mirror before seeing herself as a child. With a crown atop her head and a smile she hadn’t worn in years. 
</p>
<p>
“ You don’t exist” she said, placing an arrow in the bow and readying herself. She was prepared to fire, but at what? It wasn’t real it was just what she saw in front of her. She had no faith in it
</p>
<p>
“ Your eyes do not deceive you my love” Jobe said as he stroked her hair. She let the man hold her, keeping the arrow at his neck while he spoke.
</p>
<p>
“ I take it you are still gentle?”
</p>
<p>
“ You are not real” 
</p>
<p>
“ You have lost your faith my love, that is why all you do not see is no longer real to you. You must remember what you and your brother told me”
</p>
<p>
“ Do not speak of Edmund”
</p>
<p>
“ As we made our way back to Cair Paravel and I marveled at what you 4 built. How the citizens bowed at your name but were your backbone. Even when you were not around they had faith. And that was what I saw in you, a gentle faith. You were inviting, a bit of a rush to grow up, but you were able to see in others what they didn’t see in themselves”
</p>
<p>
“ How are you here”
</p>
<p>
“ I do not know the answer to this myself Susan. But I do know my purpose for being here, I must remind you of your faith”
</p>
<p>
“ How can I have faith in a place that took you from me, a place that took everything and left me. A place that brought me back only to tell me I can never return”
</p>
<p>
“ You have faith in the things you see and yet you doubt me?”
</p>
<p>
“ Jobe I” Susan said as she heard a voice. 
</p>
<p>
“ The world you see before you is mine, as are all worlds in between”
</p>
<p>
“ Bring him back”
</p>
<p>
“ Do not scorn me daughter of Eve. It is i that brought him here and I that will take him away”
</p>
<p>
“ Susan” Jobe said as he appeared outside of the mirror. He held her body as she began to weep, reunited with the man she had lost years ago
</p>
<p>
“ I thought you were gone... forever”
</p>
<p>
“ As I said before my love, you need to keep the faith you once had. You are queen Susan the gentle after all”
</p>
<p>
“ I cast that title away years ago. That was all a game we played as children”
</p>
<p>
“ Them how do I stand before you?”
Susan was silent as the man stood before her. He placed his hands on the mirror before giving her a kiss. “ Susan you must remember who you are, you spent your life chasing this point, chasing what  you once had instead of living for what you could see. You lost sight of it all”
</p>
<p>
“ I lost sight of the world that scorned me, the lion that gave me comfort and burned my hand in the same breath. I never wanted to lose you, not when you left, not when we came through the wardrobe again”.
</p>
<p>
“ I thought you said it was a game?”
“Regardless of that my love you must know this. You must learn to love, to have faith and not walk with the arrow pointed at the mirror. Know that you can believe in others again, walk in a path that allows you to love again. You have a man that loves you so, do not lose him”.
</p>
<p>
“ Jobe I.... where will you go”
“ I cannot tell you where I will go for it is a place that you know. You reject it because you believe it scorned you but it never did. You were permitted access like the rest. Do not assume that you will be permitted access again. You have found the love but you will need the faith again. After that you will need to be as gentle as you were at your peak. Only then will you go where I am. Queen Susan The Gentle, I love you”
</p>
<p>
And with that Jobe was gone and Susan was left alone. The bow still in her palms she began to unpack. She laid on her bed, tears falling to the pillowcase as the door opened.
</p>
<p>
“ Susan I received a call from Delilah” Nathan said, his head in the room now. “ is everything alright”
</p>
<p>
“ Yes my love” Susan said, her eyes watering as she rose. “ I have missed you so”
She did not know who she referred to, the love she had lost, the love she saw before her or a mixture of both.
</p>
<p>
“ Delilah informed me you were conflicted about staying”
“ I am” she said, not wanting to lie to the man. “ I have suffered over loss for years, my faith in love was shaken for many many years”.
“ I have long known the Susan Pevensie that puts on a front for all to see” Nathan said, sitting on her bed now.
</p>
<p>
“ If you have faith in me I would hope to know the Gentle Susan Pevensie, if she would allow it after all these years”.
Susan fell into the man, holding back a name as she stared past him and into the mirror, cair paravel off in the distance beyond.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks so much to everyone who read chapter 1. Much love and appreciation</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hey y’all. Hope you like this. What happened to Susan Pevensie was always a question I had as a kid and now I think I can answer it for myself.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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